


Friday I'm in Love

by airgeer



Category: Glee
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airgeer/pseuds/airgeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 4x04. It's a Sunday when Blaine gets on the train to the airport, leaving behind Kurt and New York and everything. It's Thursday when Finn doesn't come to help with glee. It’s Friday when Blaine stops going to school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friday I'm in Love

_Please don’t lie._

_...I’m sorry, kid._

_Will you do something for me? I don’t know where my phone is._

_What do you need?_

_Can you write this down?_

 

 

 

It's a Sunday when Blaine gets on the train to the airport, leaving behind Kurt and New York and everything.

  
It's Thursday when Finn doesn't come to help with glee.

  
It’s Friday when Blaine stops going to school.

 

It’s terrible that the best thing you can hope for in that situation is that it was fast, Blaine will think later, when the immediate screaming _grief_ has faded, leaving him with a cold, navel-gazing despair, and it’s even worse when you know it wasn’t, that he was trapped in the wreckage for hours, pinned to the floor of the subway car by the twisted metal through his abdomen.

 

Blaine will wonder what he thought of. Did he think of anything, could he think of anything? Was the pain so overwhelming that he just lay there and waited for the end?

 

Before that though, before Blaine can torture himself, and he won’t lie, he knows that that’s exactly what he’s doing, that wherever he is, if he’s anywhere, he wouldn’t want this, he has to live through his mother calling him down to the kitchen on Thursday night, and telling him that the boy that he’d once called the love of his life was dead.

 

She tells him to sit down, her eyes red, and she was only passingly fond of Kurt but apparently dying means that everyone loved you, and she sits beside him, says, “Honey, I just got a phone call from Kurt’s stepmom.”

 

Blaine looks at her, thinks the worst, but the worst is that Carole was calling to tell his parents what kind of person he is, that Blaine is a cheater who can’t cope with being alone, and then suddenly the worst becomes the best because that would have been nothing, Blaine would give _anything_ for that to have been what Carole said because his mom says, “Sweetie, there’s been an accident.”

 

She lays a hand on top of his, squeezes, and the world has kept spinning but Blaine has been left behind, he feels dizzy, cold, like he’s going to scream, but he listens carefully, because no, this can’t be happening, he’s not hearing it right, but his mom’s voice breaks when she talks again, and his mom is never like this, but she says, “She wanted you to hear it before everyone did, I’m so sorry, baby.”

 

And then she says, “Kurt passed away this morning,” and Blaine can’t think, can’t breathe, there’s a lump in his throat that’s blocking everything but sound, because he can hear a horrible sound, like a sob but without any air, and he knows he’s the one making it, and his face is so hot but his hands are so cold.

 

His mother pulls him into an embrace, pushes his face into her shoulder, and he still can’t _breathe_ , what do you do when there’s no air left in the world?

 

Blaine knows that it’s not true, that there’s air, even that he’s using air, because he’s still conscious despite the pounding in his head, and he becomes vaguely aware of his mom soothingly rubbing his back, except it’s not soothing at all, because the material of his shirt is scratching at him and he remembers buying that shirt because Kurt said he liked the colour of it with his eyes, and he wore it today because he’d been moping in his room when his mom had called him, pretending that he’d never made Kurt look like he had that night.

 

He’d woken up to an empty bed on Sunday, and crept into the main area of the apartment, only to realize that it was unnecessary, that the only person left was Rachel, and she was still asleep. The message had been loud and clear, and Blaine had taken his bag and left a note on his pillow, leaving the apartment.

 

Now it’s Thursday, and Blaine Anderson realizes that the last words he ever said to Kurt Hummel are a whispered “I’m sorry” after the lights were out.

 

He cries until he can’t anymore, and then realizes that he has no idea what comes after, that on tv the person cries, and then the scene is over and it’s on to the next one, but what happens when the crying is over?

 

His mom is humming a little song, and Blaine abruptly needs to be free of her grasp. He pulls back gently, and then harder, until she gets the message and lets him go, and then he stands on unsteady legs and makes for the back door.

 

It’s getting colder at nights now, and Blaine is immediately shivering. His feet are bare, but he can’t go back to his room, it’s all Kurt. The photos, the clothes, the friends, everything is Kurt, and Blaine feels like he’s died with him, like his heart is gone and all that’s left is a shell, but the last thing that Kurt said to him was lost in a sob, and it turns out that Blaine would live an entire life of Kurt unwilling to speak to him if it meant that Kurt ever spoke again.

 

He stands in the back yard until his dad comes out for him, and Blaine doesn’t resist when he’s steered inside and sat down on the couch. His dad doesn’t talk, but he sits there with him, and when Blaine wakes up disoriented and confused the next morning, there’s a blanket over him and his dad is asleep in the arm chair.

 

It takes him a moment to realize why he’s on the couch, why his dad is there, and Blaine stands up, walks to the bathroom, and is washing his hands before his knees realize that they don’t feel like standing anymore. He sinks to the floor and buries his face in his hands, and wonders if he can hide in the bathroom until he feels like a person again, wonders _if_ he’ll feel like a person again.

 

It doesn’t work; his dad comes and finds him, picks him up and walks him out to the kitchen, and sits him down at the table. His mom sets a piece of toast down in front of him, and Blaine can’t bring himself to bite into it so he pulls it apart instead, his teeth clenching with sudden, irrational anger that’s gone as soon as it hits.

 

When he stands up from the table, the chair scrapes loudly across the floor. His footsteps are silent on the stairs, and he left his bedroom door open last night. He thinks he left music playing, but it’s quiet now, and he sits on his bed and closes his eyes so he can’t see the photo on his bedside table.

 

At the funeral, Blaine wears the same suit that he wore to Kurt’s senior prom, the one that his dad bought him for events and that he chose when he thought that they were only going to the anti-prom. His hand passes over his bowties and pulls out his one and only black tie, and he pairs it with a dress shirt that’s a slightly different shade of black, but the only person in Ohio that would’ve cared enough to notice is the one that the funeral is for.

 

He hasn’t spoken to Burt or Carole since before Kurt left for New York, but he knows that Burt must know what Blaine did, because if Kurt hadn’t told him, Finn would’ve.

 

He doesn’t talk to them at the funeral either. He sits at the back, sandwiched by his parents, and stares at the closed casket. He sees people that he knows, lots of them, but he steps behind his dad when he does. Even if they don’t hate him, even though most of them don’t know what he did, he doesn’t think he can talk.

 

Blaine calls himself a coward when he gets home that day, and in a fit of self-loathing, he listens to every voicemail that he’s been left since last Thursday, and reads every text message. The texts from the glee club wondering where he was stopped at noon on Friday. The last one is from Artie and said “lol u in ny again?”. The text from Tina that said “pls tell me this is a sick joke and kurt is ok” had come nine minutes later. The first voicemail came one minute after that.

 

There is nothing from Rachel, or from Finn, and since he’d been staring at his phone when his mother had called him down, he isn’t expecting anything from Kurt.

 

He reads the messages again. There still isn’t one from Kurt.

 

Blaine knows that Kurt wasn’t the only one to die in that crash, far from it, that it was “one of the worst subway disasters in the history of New York”. He wasn’t even the last one, because he never made it to the hospital, and the death toll is still climbing. He knows that Burt identified his body, and that the casket didn’t have to be closed, but he also knows that Kurt hated it when people stared at him for the wrong reasons.

 

Kurt was not buried beside his mother, because other people were. Kurt _was_ buried near a tree, and Blaine has an inappropriate, horrific flashback to digging the hole for the tiny casket that Kurt had so lovingly decorated, and walking away from it hand-in-hand.

 

When Blaine had left Eli’s, he’d known that he shouldn’t have done it, that he would regret it forever. Even when Kurt wasn’t answering his phone, he’d still hoped that Kurt could forgive him for it, that he could forgive himself, and that they could still be Kurt-and-Blaine, not Kurt and Blaine.

 

And then Thursday had come.

 

Rachel comes to his house, three days after the funeral. She’s not wearing make-up, looks more like the girl in the videos Kurt had shown him from his sophomore year than the woman that Blaine had met in New York.

 

She hugs him, and Blaine hugs back, and she whispers that the only reason that she wasn’t on that train with him was that she was in Lima to break up with Finn, and Blaine whispers that he cheated, and she doesn’t let go when she tells him that she knows.

 

She isn’t angry with him, and Blaine wishes that she was. It’s selfish of him, to want that, because he knows that Rachel forgave him because Kurt being cheated on by someone who hates himself for it is nothing next to the thought of Kurt in pain and knowing that he was dying.

 

When he goes back to school, Blaine goes to see Ms. Pillsbury at lunch time, and pretends it isn’t so he can’t go to the choir room. She looks at him, and tries to smile, and Blaine cries again. She looks uncomfortable, so after Blaine blows his nose quietly, he says “I cheated on Kurt.”

 

She blinks, and then her face runs through a gamut of emotions that Blaine is not detached enough to find amusing. “Okay,” she says, finally settling on calm and sympathetic. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“He knew,” Blaine says. “He wasn’t talking to me.” Ms. Pillsbury nods, and Blaine is getting frustrated again. “I built my life around him, and then he was gone, off in New York, and I thought I was losing him, and I cheated on him, and I think I would’ve lost him because of it anyway, but now he’s just...gone.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, but Blaine can see a hint of pity in her eyes, and she doesn’t get it. “I built my life around him,” he repeats. “Everything I dreamed of was with him, he was everything I wanted, and I threw it all away, and now everything that we could’ve had is gone anyway.”

 

“You’re feeling lost?” Ms. Pillsbury asks, folding her hands in front of her.

 

“No.” Blaine stands up. He doesn’t know why he thought this was a good idea, if he doesn’t even understand how he’s feeling, how can he expect someone else to? “I have to go. Thank you for trying.”

 

He’s crying in the men’s room and trying to hide it when Sam finds him, and doesn’t say anything, doesn’t touch him, doesn’t try to soothe him, just leans against the sink and stares at the ground. Blaine is grateful, in a pathetic way, because he’s so lonely, but he wishes he was alone.

 

The bell rings, and Sam turns for the door, still not looking at Blaine. “Are you coming to class?” he asks, and his voice is low and rough, and Blaine understands why he wasn’t looking up.

 

He nods, and Sam looks disappointed, like he was looking for an excuse to skip class. Blaine picks up his bag and follows him out of the bathroom, but hits him in the back when he stops short.

 

“I kind of hated you,” he says, turning around. “When Finn explained why Burt was talking to Kurt for hours on the phone. I’ve been cheated on, and I remember how it felt. I’ve also been the person who was cheated with, though, and I remember how cut up Mercedes was about telling Shane, and I know that you loved Kurt more than she loved him.”

 

“I kind of hate me too,” Blaine says, but Sam’s already shaking his head.

 

“No, but like, you cheated and it’s never going to have not happened, but he loved you. I remember he used to dance around his room when he got off the phone with you, and he was so unhappy before he met you. I think he still loved you after he found what you did, because that’s not the kind of feeling that disappears.”

 

“Why are you saying this?” and Blaine can hardly get the words out, he’s choking on his tears.

 

“Just...I hated you, but only before the accident, and he would’ve forgiven you, because he loved you. It might not have been soon, but he would have. And that means that you have to forgive yourself too, because even when you’re furious with someone you love, it doesn’t mean that you want them to be miserable, and Kurt wouldn’t want you to be sad forever.”

 

Sam pats his arm and walks off, and Blaine turns the opposite way, doesn’t stop walking until he’s in the backseat of his car. He lies down on the seat, hoping that no one looks in the windows, and tries to think about what Sam said.

 

He concludes that Sam might be right, but that he can’t reconcile Kurt’s face that night with the idea that he might’ve smiled at him again. He settles for continuing to breathe instead of forgiving himself, he isn’t even sure where to begin with that.

 

The car windows are fogging up when his mind begins to wander to Kurt, wondering and imagining what happened to him while he was dying, and it’s so much worse now that he’s alone, and he doesn’t want to think of Kurt’s face twisted with pain, but he can’t remember a happy time to replace it.

 

An inhale catches in his throat, and he can’t deal with this, and then the car door is opened, and it’s Burt Hummel’s gruff voice saying his name.

 

He sits up and hides his face, groping for the Kleenex, and then Burt’s warm hand is on his, passing him one and urging him to move over.

 

Blaine blows his nose and scoots across the backseat, and Burt climbs in, a big man in a small car. He swipes away the tears and tries to calm down, the cool autumn air from outside sapping away the heat that had built up while he was lying down.

 

Burt closes the door after him, says “I got something in the mail. I called your house and your mom said that you weren’t home yet, so I figured you might be here still.” He hands Blaine a piece of paper and looks away, waiting for him to unfold it.

 

 

_Dad,_

Blaine stops, looks up, and Burt nods jerkily, puts his head in his hands.

 

 

_Dad, I’m really sorry and I love you. I want you to tell me that everything’s going to be okay, but it doesn’t hurt very much anymore and I know it isn’t. ~~Do you promise that you’ll send this~~ I guess I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you, and that I don’t want to die but it’s okay and that I hope you’ll be okay. You’re the best dad a guy like me could ask for, and thank you for being you. Please be okay, Dad. And you too Carole, I love you. I gave Finn a hug on Sunday morning, and I knew that Rachel was going to break up with him, and I’m glad she’s not here, but I gave her a hug when she left and they both know I love them and I don’t know what else I can say I’m not ready for this. _

_I want to say something to Blaine too, can I? Blaine, I still love you, I promise, and I don’t know why you did that, but I do love you and I’m not mad anymore. I think I still would be, but I still thought that we had a future, and I’m sorry that we won’t get to. You know that I love you, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. That’s all, I guess._

 

 

Blaine tips his head against the window and squeezes his eyes shut. Burt says, his voice barely there, “That’s a copy, I thought you’d want it.”

 

He can’t open his eyes, can’t stop his mouth trembling, but he forces a nod, as decisively as he can. He wants it.

 

Burt doesn’t touch him again, lets him press his forehead against the cool glass and just breathe. After a long while, he asks, “Are you okay to drive?”

 

Blaine nods. He has somewhere to go.

 

Kurt brought him red and yellow roses once, swallowing his own hurt to be supportive of him. Blaine looked up what they meant when he got home that night, and there was nothing to celebrate now, but at the florist he asked for six red and six yellow roses.

 

Blaine had sent the same flowers to Kurt’s office in New York on a Tuesday, dictating the note over the phone, and Kurt hadn’t replied. The girl behind the counter looks at him oddly, and Blaine knows that he’s a mess, but he pays for the flowers and goes back to his car.

 

He looks at his phone, replies to his mom that he’s fine, that Burt found him, and he knows school’s over but he won’t be home for a little while, and then he counts the days, the flowers settling and crinkling in their plastic next to him.

 

It’s Friday, and it’s been twenty-two days since Blaine broke Kurt’s trust. It’s been twenty days since Kurt looked at him like his heart was broken, and nineteen since Blaine woke up to an almost empty apartment.

 

It’s been fifteen days since Kurt lay on the floor of a subway car, dictating a letter to a stranger so that Blaine would know he loved him.

 

Blaine wishes that he’d grabbed his jacket from his locker when he steps out in the cemetery, one hand in his pocket with the note, and the other clutching the flowers. The wind cuts through his sweater, and the sun is getting low.

 

He finds Kurt’s grave easily, looking up at the tree, brilliant with all the colours of fall, and then down at the grave, the gravestone freshly installed and covered by flowers in all the colours of the rainbow. He carefully avoids stepping on the ground above the casket, and adds his flowers to the pile, and then he stands back.

 

“There are a lot of things that I wish I could change,” he confesses, because Kurt deserves the truth from him, now and forever, “but you’re never one of them. If I could go back and relive the last two years, knowing that it ends like this, I would love you the same.”

 

“I would love you more, because by loving me, you showed me the person that I wanted to be. You showed me what it meant to be brave, and you taught me to forgive. You are the best person I’ve ever met, and I love you.”

 

Blaine closes his eyes as the wind gusts up, and remembers Kurt’s face the first time he said that, shocked, and then a breathless “I love you, too!” and he remembers then the way Kurt’s lips felt moving against his, the easy and pleased way that he responded to affection, his acerbic wit mixed with a perfect sweetness that he saved for Blaine, the way his eyes had lit up when he’d realized that Blaine had transferred, that Blaine was at his apartment two weeks early, that Blaine was only singing for him.

 

“I’ll be okay, I know that matters to you. I kind of feel like the best parts of me are gone, but I can make it good again, and that’s my promise to you. I won’t give up.”

 

The stone of the marker is smooth when Blaine runs his fingers over it, he doesn’t know why he expected it to be rough.

 

He opens his mouth to say goodbye but stops, clutches the note in his pocket. “You never said goodbye,” he says instead. “Should I say it for both of us?”

 

He waits for an answer that he knows won’t come, watching the winds rustle the petals of the roses. “I won’t. Not yet.”

 

He presses a kiss to his fingers and touches the gravestone, and then he walks away.

 

***

 


End file.
